Writing Slowly

Surprising news that Brett Terpstra has resurrected the venerable note making app nvALT. Yes indeed, nvALT is back from the dead.

True, we’ve been waiting what seems like centuries for the long-promised, upgraded and massively improved version, nvULTRA to appear, but since it isn’t yet available, at least now there’s an interim solution, a revamped nvALT.

I expect almost everyone who might need a simple note-making app that plays nicely with Markdown files has already long since moved on to other options, such as any one of many text editors, or MarkEdit on the Mac, or nvENVY, or The Archive or Zettlr, or Obsidian or Bear — or you name it.

Still, it’s nice to see nvALT, the (almost) original and (possibly) the best, back in action. Maybe it’ll also encourage a few people to check out Brett Terpstra’s app Marked3, which for anyone working with Markdown files is rather useful. It’s billed as a ‘Markdown preview’ app but it does a whole lot more than that, including things I didn’t know were possible¹. And I can confirm that the latest release of nvALT works well with Marked’s ‘streaming preview’ feature.

A while ago, Christian of zettelkasten.de produced a handy guide for using nvALt as a Zettel note archive, though the specialised Zettelkasten apps, The Archive and Zettlr add features that some fans of this approach to making notes may well find indispensable. But since life is complicated enough as it is, I’m an advocate of using the simplest tools you can get away with for A minimal approach to writing notes, and nvALT is useful, fast and simple.

And talking of simplicity and of the (almost) original, the real OG, the venerable Notational Velocity, has been receiving updates recently too, after a long dormancy. It seems to have come back to life with a new release after a remarkable fifteen year gap.

Interesting that these note-making apps still seem useful and relevant after all these years. And hold onto your hat: for the long-awaited nvUltra release, apparently Brett is ‘shooting for 2026 still’.

Now read:

• Enhanced markdown apps you can use for free to make effective notes.
• So many note-taking apps in the app graveyard - but not all are zombies.
• A minimal approach to writing notes.